they sued the city during an overnight raid in 2011. according to the lawsuit the city returned only about 1,000 books to the occupily briar. the city will cover lawyer fees for the occupy wall street for this case. stay up to date about breaking news on authors, publishing, and book by liking us on facebook.com or follow us on twitter. you can visit our website booktv.org and click on news about books.

you're watching booktv on c-span2. here's the prime time lineup for tonight. coauthor of the "murder in the extreme court" talk about their book with kimberly of the national bar association. we conclude the prime time programming at 11:00 eastern. his book is blood of tyrant. george washington and the forcing the presidency. visit booktv.org for more on the television schedule is. benn steil is next on booktv. he talk about the creation of the brett ton wood system.

>> earthquake i'm co-chairman of the counsel. i was told that my soul purpose it to welcome you as i have done to hear benn as he talks about his new book "the battle of bretton woods: john maynard keynes, harry dexter white, and the making of a new world order" having said that, i would make two observations. i read book. that's one observation. i got it for nothing. [laughter] >> i think it's worth. most of you know benn maybe all of you did. i think it's worth remembering. why ben is so well qualified to take on the complicated issues. he created from wharton and ph.d. from oxford and publishes

a journal which he was the founding editor of international finance and a scholar journey for -- he writes math met call pieces. the place he publishes them in benn's journal. there are four of people who understand them and they read benn's journal. doesn't sound like a profitable comprise. my second observation are having said that the book is readable and a fascinating tale. a tale about the creation of imf and world bank. a particular moment in time. it's a tale about economic policy the importance and a tale about john may it was a great deal of information that was i had not been aware of before. let me wind this up by saying ben got review "the new york

times" that most authorities would trade their soul for. maybe ben did. i don't know. [laughter] just occurred to me at this moment. there are bargains worth making. the only tale in the long run. in any event it's a tear -- terrific book. i strongly recommend it. benn. l [applause] >> thank you, bob. just to clarify "the new york times" review not yet out. i'm not sure what i'm willing to trade for it. thank you for the kind words, bob. anything you can do to keep up the press buzz about currency wars is great. we appreciate it. [laughter] indeed, currency wars is a 1930 were a great obsession of fdr's treasury. one of the driving motivation of the conference was to eliminate currency wars specific type of currency wars. those directed against the

united states and the u.s. in fact harry dexter wayne right hand man briefed the american delegation before they went to battle and told them quote "the new international monetary fund he was determined to set up, is designed for a special purpose. depreciation. and in order to do that, they were going create a system of fixed exchange rates which would be sustained by the new international monetary fund. it may seem rather strange in the current context when the united has constantly badgering other countries and particularly china to adopt flexible exchange rates and stop apaing. the motivation was the same to get a more competitive dollar. in 1940 all the pressure was

upward in the market. some countries link to the u.s. dollar kept the dollar at a high level where as today most of the pressure from important emerging market current countries in particular china most of the pressure on their currency is upward of the united before it's flexible exchange rate. in order to get a more competitive dollar. notwithstanding u.s. strong dollar policy, of course. so he was effectively a deal that the u.s. offered the world. we are will provide you as the world's soul remaining credible creditor, with short term balance of payment, support for which you promise not to devalue against us without permission from the imf which we would control. but fdr's treasury and harry dexter white in particular had other goals that were far more interesting and controversial.

in particular to eliminate great britain as a political and economic rival in the post world war. that might seem remarketble now. it was a great democratic ally in the second world war. the u.s. treasury was obsessed with making sure that we could exploit this unique moment in time to eliminate what we consider to be our last remaining rival in the world which was great britain. quote from henry morgan speaking to president trueman after franklin roosevelt died. he wanted to explain. henry morgan is the treasury secretary. i intended, quote "to move the financial center from london and wall street to the united states treasury" wall streetly is particularly -- [inaudible] [laughter] this was part of new deal antibanker agenda. it wasn't just international. it was the new deal.

henry morgan told the u.s. delegation, quote, now the advantage is ours here. i personally think we should take it. to which harry dexter white added if the advantage was theirs, that is britain's they will take it. so the u.s. was absolutely determined to exploit this moment in time. so woods was in effect a deal that treasury struck with a severely weak end britain to get it through the war and the immediate post war landscape without financial collapse. u.s. would provide short term financial assistance in return for which britain would first eliminate what was called imperial trade preference. privileged access for british goods to the markets of their colony and dmin imron. that would be ended. second, britain would make fully

convertible to dollars, so this massive stock of useless sterling that britain's colonies and dominions had built up would be spent on something else besides the british goods in particular. american goods and finally in very controversially to accept the u.s. dollar as the basic unit of account for global trade. as you can imagine, the british resisted this fiercely, and in fact harry dexter white used remarkable at woods in order to push it through. cains did not seen it until he left britain. it's a remarkable part of the story. the final love and famous british economist put it, quote, we need the cash. unquote. winston churchill famously referred to american as quote, unquote, the most unsorted

acts. the u.s. was in fact only willing to provide aid after really milking britain dry. we forced them, for example, to sell all of their major sub sipped area of british companies in the united states. there's even some evidence that fdr's administration was willing to take it to empire. but not every bit. here is a nice quote from henry morgan speaking to the u.s. treasury represented in washington in 1940. he said there's one thing i know i can say for mr. roosevelt we don't want any of the islands. i know, he doesn't want jay may quay or trinidad, and i know he doesn't want british. [laughter] in fact, the u.s. was more respondent usely generous during the second world war to china and the soviet union. than to britain. it seems remarble today. the mind set of the focused on

britain as our main rival. this was all over three years later with the marshall plan in 1947. that's another story to be told in my next book. country of the reason the collapse in 1967 and '67 is rapid and violent as it was is because britain was rapidly running out of dollars. and the u.s. treasury was managing that process. if you look at the debate behind the scene and the british government early 1947 when burma, greece, palestinian were collapses violent i. it was about collars. we can't afford it anymore. we have to make the pound convertible july of 1947. only way we can make that commitment is if we start holding on to the dollars.

we have to let the empire go. it was part of harry dexter white's agenda. let me say a few words about the main character. they are fascinated. british reviewers of the book told them different as, quote unquote chalk and cheese bourbon and afternoon tea. that one i like in particular. these were two men who a grudging admiration for each other. white considered cains a genius which he undoubtedly was. keynes admired him not just economic policy but foreign policy. white was remarkably influential figure. here is what keynes said about white early in his interaction with him. he said, quote, he's not the

faintest conception how to -- he refer to the white plan that lead to the quote of a work of lunatic or a bad joke. an emotional outburst between the two in negotiations. you can really get a sense of the disparity and the background and how conscious both men were of this. for example, one particularly heated session white explodes keynes explodes at white and deputies all of whom white fires back we are will try to produce something which your hien ease can understand. keynes was not only the most famous economist of the 20th

century. he was really the first ever celebrity economist. really got up the noses of the americans. they tried very much to hide him away. white put him in charge of the commission to create the world bank. americans didn't care about the world bank. they wouldn't let him introduce or nominate henry morgan. they didn't care about him. all they cared about was john may around keynes. he was also remarkably a stooge about the britain's financial situation and how the americans could exploit it were exploiting it. he pointed out to the british government early in the process that british freedom to engineer new post war social and economic policy was quote ime possible

without further further assistance. the country's room for maneuver was e eliminated. the americans, he said, are strong enough to offer inducement to walk out on us. i had said there were orderses in the united states intending to used post war credit as an opportunity for imposing the american conception of the international economic system. for all his brilliant sei he was the world's who's diplomat. he made the first official trip to washington. it was a begging mission to the u.s. treasury. here are some of the comments that came back after his visit.

keyne was quote, rude, and disobliging, unquote. and too offensive for words. these quotes came from the british ambassador and the financial party. [laughter] what the meshes said was worse. but, i mean, the question one really had to ability keyneings as a diplomat is could anyone have done for britain? they were dealt. my answer surprisingly is yes. that keynes had a bad hand to play, but he played inaptly. let me give you an example. in may of 19 e before the conference the u.s. financial secretary in washington cabled keynes very excitely saying that u.s. banking community in new york was launching a rear guard action against the fdr administration and the

initiative. they hated the whole idea of international monetary fund. they would offer us $3 billion if we walk away. with no geopolitical terms. and keynes turned it con. why? he was obsessed with his legacy. and he wanted to be known as the father of monetary system that would overturn the gold standard. i think a career diplomat was less concerned with his intellectual legacy and history might have exploited opportunity like this. who was harry dexter white? truly an extraordinary and not well understood character in american history. he was son of immigrant parents in 1892. his parents died when he was extremely young. miss mother died when he was 9 his father when he was 16. he showed no real academic

skills and until late in life. he finished the undergraduate degree at 30. but then he went on to harvard to a doctorate and suddenly he starts getting interesting in the world. if you read his own biography can he wrote. there's nothing that appears before his ph.d. from harvard at age 38. it's like this whole life to that date didn't exist. he couldn't get tenure. he went off to a small college in wisconsin, lawrence college, and what was his ambition? interestingly enough he told the former adviser at harvard he was studying russia. he wanted to go to the sowf yet union to study. he was only diverted from the id by a call from jacob liner, a well known u.s. economist who is working for the treasury to come for a brief period to work on a monetary study. he never left.

they fortunate a close relationship he at any time have any affin he had the ear of a president. he was an old friend of the president's from high park new york. harry dexter white actually had enormous influence in the run up to the he was influential in making pos toward japan. white, for his part, was completely dependent on him for the status in washington. he had no official title of consequence until january of 1945. after wood. he wasn't even a official civil servant.

he was being paid out. so he knew that at any moment he could be cut loose and sent back to apple ton, wisconsin. and he certainly didn't want to go back there. but he was obsessed from early on with the idea of a monetary conference which would establish the u.s. dollar as the bedrock for the international monetary system. here is something i found he wrote in 1936. eight years before woods. the more sterling countries there are the stronger will be england's position around a conference table should an international conference take place. he was determined to make sure that when we went to the conference eventually as he was sure we would that england would be in the weaker position as possible and america would be in the stronger position as possible he outmaneuvers keynes. he didn't see many of the key provision that went to the imf

article of agreement which he would have. and had fought against for years. one fascinating paradox aspect of the white story was the fact that inspite of his having been a father of close war capitalism. he operated as a mold for sowf jet intelligence over a period of roughly 11 years from 1935 to 1946. it was a gap from there 1939 after they threat tend expose him. he got back to the business. recently i would characterize as a murder case when people -- and elizabeth bently. you have the weapon, handwritten document with classified information that he turned over to richard nixon. but didn't have a real why did he do this. when was the evidence? and i recently wrote a article

in foreign affairs about this on harry dexter white. i found an unpublished essay in the archives that nobody noticed before. thirty-page essay probably written in 19 e. he explained the postwar division. went past american imperial and hypocrisy toward soviet union. that ends the sees baby paraphrasing i have seen the future works. he writes the russia is the world's first social economist aaction. it works exclamation point. remarkable documentary. i have no idea what he planned to do. nobody had seen it at the time. how did white reconcile his views? fact he struggled mightingly in the last year to reconcile the belief on the one hand in a dollar centered global free

architecture with the belief on the other. in a soviet socialist economic model that had no use for it. he could never reconcile the two. what influence did the soviet sympathy have? very little. he was solicitor of the soviet enormously obstructive. but there was no soviet monetary thinking to speak of. you might wonder why to this day it's a european who runs the imf and not an american. where the imf was clearly more important to the united states and the reason is this. the president truman had intended to nominate white to be the first managing director of the imf in january of 196. right before he did so he received a long memo from fbi director saying essentially don't think about it. i have credible witnesses and information. that will corroborate my

allegations that the man is a soviet spy. truman didn't trust him. the u.s. con contacted a new -- they decided that they want the world bank to quote, unquote secure -- and it would be rude of us to take both institutions. both institutions mind you were in washington. they wouldn't touch the imf. they wanted information about the scandal coming out. it sort of lives on to this day. that point, i should probably stop and open up the floor for questions. [applause] yeah?

[inaudible] free market exist as leader of the british delegation we have -- [inaudible] we also have for the sake along with economics. supposing we haven't seen keyne but somebody senble. don't you think britain would have gotten a better deal? he wasn't -- he was in washington during very stressful negotiations with the u.s. treasury about the post war american transitional. he had a bad heart attack during the negotiation and that probably did he was know

disciple. he had great sympathy for a man as a has been. he said, it's his fault. he entrapped the king with the great visions said it would be an bomb nation the americans should reimburse us. you can imagine how it was received in washington. so it's always understood. that keyne would get caught up as it were in his own red rhetoric and concern with his legacy. i don't think robins would done that. robins certainly thought highly of himself and his economics.

he had no intention of certainly a career diplomat would have take seriously the possibility of just pursuing short term private loans. they had a sympathetic ear in the united states and the form of the export import bank. the canadian were lending britain money and probably would continued to do that. he willfully dismissed those. it would never work out in the interest. there was alternatives about it. [inaudible] greatest disappointment was when stalin refused to ratify woods. so do you have a view about why

he did that when the other hand he agreed to participate in the united nations? >> yeah. one of the reasons the soviet did decide to go forward with the united nations is because they were given a veto by the united states. the united states didn't want there to be a receive yet veto. how it they know they were going to be able to get one? white told them. he was a representativive of the administration at san francisco. he was leaking information to pass knew agency journalist. his name was -- work for receive

yet intelligence. white probably new who he was. he certainly knew that this information was not meant. for the press. white the soviet had no interest in this monetary architecture except for one reason. the soviets like the idea of a new monetary architecture being founded on gold in some form. because the receive yet had a lot of it. and look on the verge of getting more of it. the soviet were thrilled with my monetary system that would lead to making their both become more valuable. but they really viewed woods as they did the marshall plan initially as just an opportunity to get short term credits from the united states. which they could eventually repute yaid. in fact white fought fiercely

within the fdr administration for $10 billion loan. and the main reason, we find in the soviet archive why would they would not ratify woods because no u.s. financial aid was forthcoming. they said we're not going get anything out of this. it's not worth going forward. white was disappointed.

[inaudible] i have never been comfortable of the normal labels. he didn't take them from anyone. he knew on which side the toast was buttered and civil to henry. he didn't follow and he certainly didn't follow them from moscow. he didn't join any movement the communist party. he annoyed the heck out of wit care and the soviet handle leer. he sphere for periods and reemerge on the scene. he was a true believer.

forms and beneficial for the world for the soviet union revolution. going to take over the world and it was one account a speech writer that i found incredible before i found the essay in the archive saying in 1945 in a private conversation with him white had said the imf will fail. anybody else and there was no way the united the was going to survive more than five to ten years in the capitalist island in the sea of state trading. so these were convictions of

him. he was a man of great conviction. he supported passionately fighting -- progressive party and campaign for the presidency in 192. he passionly supported he indeed a true believer. he took orders from nobody. [inaudible] do you have anything in your book about the relationship of harry dexter white and -- [inaudible] >> no, i do. and i don't know what there was. we know they interacted, for example. in san francisco they would have. i did not come across anything in the archive about the

interaction between the two of them. i would say that on my basis of reading the are civile terrible in particular soviet intelligence cable that were decrypted under the so-called project white was probably in the 190s more important receive yet intelligence. the case should have died out after 1948 because white died of a heart attack.

i have no evidence about the relationship between the two. the most important soviet at the time were in treasury not in the state department. >> i can add -- [inaudible] [inaudible] they were side landed. they had enormous influence during the war if i can be allowed one small inte dote put him in charge of producing the occupation currency that the u.s. would use in germany. after the war.

there was fierce resistance to this within the administration. he went to totally mischaracterize a memo from general marshall. marshall said if you decide to go forward with this scheme, you can do it without interfering with my plans any time after may 1st of the year. and white told the various players who were involved in the currency discussion that marshall had himself ordered the plate to be delivered to the soviet. we did give them the plate. the soviets printed up $8 billion occupation marks were cashed in in washington at the fixed exchange rate. between for and $6 million. do i have time?

i'm being warned i have gone over my time. i'm sorry. i'm going hang around and i'm happy to answer for questions. [applause] [inaudible conversations] is there a non-fiction author or book you would like to see featured on booktv. send us an e-mail. or tweet us at twitter.com. here is a look at books being published this week.

imagine influence in a new middle east

the way we often talk about the evolution of competing as well. you have actually spelled some of these out. i want you to talk about those for a minute. first of all, you talk about it debunk the notion that most great progress stems from the single brilliant inventer alone in the lab. >> right. there's a eureka moment. there's a flash of brilliance and the innovation happens in that isolation and not so much in the ecosystem. all three you take on early in the book and you say that's not what happened. it wasn't true in edson's time. can you talk about that and what you have learned. >> i think people long for the story. the great eureka moment story. it's exciting and successful to people. it's more complicated to

understand the exchange of idea. the competition for the battle over the marketplace. it's easier to think of these great ideas as being passed down to us by a mount mount rushmore. in the case of edson and the lightbulb. how did it happen? >> he entered late to the there were five or six other inventers. patents ahead of edson a crucial patent. all recognized that the key element of vacuum bulb and the carbon silhouette entering to a crowd and he learned a lot from the mistakes and successes of his rivals and many suggested he stole a lot of idea. there was a lot of battling over the patents. >> who was involved at the time? trying competitively to achieve the same thing.

>> another best character is -- [inaudible] i had beat edson how to treat it and work a lightbulb in the field before edson did. joseph swan in new castle in england. also had working for years on developing working lightbulb and put one to the latest. and had a six month before edson did. there were many people converging by test of this in paris at the electrical expo suggestion and edson won the day when he arrived. he was there with five other people. at the same time. >> were they all aware as they might be awear today of the work. >> yes. the progress they were making.

>> yes, there were at least a dozen if you go back first person to identify the possibility of the light was sir humphrey day i have. once he demonstrated that. people were trying to do for years. they didn't quite have all the pieces together. it con converged. more than a half a century. people trying to create the light. what did you disoi about the i suspect many other inventer had a sense of rivalry. he announced quite arrogantly that when he entered the field he had figured this out in a way that nobody else had. and the breakthrough to suggest they were wrong. they were trying to create a carbon -- involved and he was going create a titanium. and when he announced this,

stock markets for gas around the globe plummeted because people were convinced edson said he can do this sewerly he can. six months later he had to say i think i'm going back to carbon. >> as we get to the discussion of technology. let's talk about the wonderful phrase you have early in the book. edson invited a new style of invention. he almost invented the almost modern way of innovation. >> that's been said. the model was to create a first research and development laboratory. he was critical of college education and -- of the fact he was largely self-taught. he knew enough to hire university trained mathematicians and people who understand the latest chemistry to help in the project.

he had to hire technician that can realize the idea. he needed somebody to realize the various idea. it was the entire team working collaboratively and intensively edson was guy intelligent many knew more about he was the one that set the agenda and had to negotiate with the capitalist in order to get the money to pay for what turned out to be a expensive research and qoment process. he said invention factory and promise he was going come up with a minor invention every ten days an amazing breakthrough every six months. you can watch this and other programs online. here's a look at upcoming book fairs and festival happening around the country.

the philadelphia book festival running from april 14 through the 20th. it will hold even in 55 city library sites and nightly presentation in the montgomery auditorium. featuring author such a rachael mad dough. on april 20 and 21st booktv will be live from the los angeles times festival of book on the university of southern california. we'll be covering two days of live author panel discussions and author call in interviewed checkbook tv.org for update on the live coverage. also that weekend mount gum i are alabama will host the eight annual alabama book festival. it features over forty vendors and exit or its. and has about 45 authors and poet presentation scheduled. on april 21st, they host the international day of the book.

i married a communist a plot against america and our gang. the first part of the event started with a panel discussion of the life and work. followed an address by the author himself. it's about two hours. i am elizabeth. i'm president of the newark landmark committee. and along with mary we need marry sue, please stand up. will ma, where are you? will ma grey director of the newark museum and library.

we welcome you to the hometown newark, new jersey. [applause] we hope you had time to visit the library. where a great exhibit life and photograph will be on exit through august. and expwreams lewis, james, are you in the audience. i know, james is in the building somewhere, and whenever you are, james, i would like you to take a well deserved bow for an excellent job. it is a must see for any philip roth fans. i first met philip in of october of 2005 when the landmark committee did a philip roth day in newark. it was a joyous day. we inaugurated the bus tour, the

philip roth bus tour of newark. as of today i would like you to know that over 500 people have enjoyed that tour. [applause] and rosemary, are you here? you have to take a bow. she did the research in to phillip's writings that made the tour a real fip philip met us at the childhood home that afternoon. he unveiled a plaque, which the landmark committee had put on the home the day before. and that plaque designated phillip roth childhood home as anistic site. we also renamed the corner of philip roth. and today the three buses on of

many perhaps here. it was the most been in a long time. [laughter] when the hard work of the committee in putting together that day was paid back in full by the phillip's obvious enjoyment of the day. i think he enjoyed every single moment of the day. and philip has maintained an interest in the landmark's committee since then. i would like you to know that he wants any proceeds from these events to be donated to the newark preservation and landmark committee. we thank you and we thank philip. when amy of the philip roth society came to me about a year and a half ago and said they were going to celebrate this special day, and that philip had suggested she call me in order

to get the landmark committee involved. i was delighted. i was further delighted when all powers to be agreed it should be held in newark. what could be more appropriate than the two cultural treasure of newark the mu seem and library joined to celebrate a newark-born american cultural treasure. so before amy likes to start the program. i would like to read a sentence from "goodbye columbus" it has been read and written about many times during this week. it must be observed tonight in the auditorium. fifty years ago he wrote sitting there in the park i felt a deep

knowledge of newark. ab attachment so rooted it could not help but branch out in to affection. ladies and gentlemen, we have come full circle for tonight newark welcomes philip roth with affection. [applause] dear all, i wrote it as a letter. it's the only way i know how to write. >> dear all i would like to begin by thanking you for being here with us during this huge occasion. when as president of the philip roth society i asked mr. roth if we could throw him an 80th birthday party conference and reception. i believe myselfed to be simply asking that he did not take

events in our presumption use nor mock us in my forthcoming novel about the ridiculousness about academic and the society. after all we take ourselves as seriously as adam has in the layest new yorker essay written on the occasion for the philip roth 80sth. we are here to acknowledge in no small part the great writing of great man. founded in 2002 by der reck it sees as primary function to facility and support the citizenship of mr. roth. we are seated here today with mr. roth and the esteemed friends and colleague is nothing short of a dream come true. when i discover that mr. roth had not only agreed on that day in august of 2011 to he would attend and put the energy and talent to work on the event.

i was at first speechless and terrified and then of course reassured. no one i know can create the energy over an event in the room through appearance of a new book than can mr. roth. i'm grateful to you, mr. roth for all you have done for me and us. i wish you the happiest birthday on this night. [applause] [applause] we have planned for you a tremendous evening of tribute to mr. roth. remarks given by jonathan, the novelist. the biographer, claudia, the literary and social critic, elaine, the french policy for, ed that, the novellest and biographer, the novellest and mr. roth, who many believe to be our greatest living american

author. thank you to everyone. where are you david? [applause] thank you to the invited speakers, thank you to our guest of honor. early in the novel, i married a communist, mr. roth makes reference to a memory of young nathan disukerman. you flood to history, and history floods in to you. you flood in to america, and america floods in to you. i have the sense it's true tonight. the word flood portrays history and overwhelming and that's the kind of history being made. in the presence of the finest talent in american literature, fiction and criticism in this one room, on this single moment

in time, america indeed in to us. and it's my hope in some small part we are flooding in to america as well. i hope you enjoy the evening. thank you. [applause] [applause] hello i'm jonathan. and happy birthday, phil. i'm happy to be here. i'm too nervous -- i have written a little tribute. and it had a title "counter roth." [laughter] i have taken the train out to east hampton bringing with me to

read only the first volume of js this was an ambiguous mission i was on. i have been invited to a nice rich girl's family summer house. i'm justifying calling her girl. it was the summer after my first year of college and i was 19. a boy of 19. we had been only friends at college but might be more away from college. that was the ambiguous mission. i didn't know what i wanted. on the train, i staired out the window not making it past more than a chapter of the book. the girl and her mother picked me up the station. the five minute drive there and back long enough by the time we entered the house through the kitchen, the girl's younger brother was pulling from the broiler two overdone smoldering lobsters red partly blacked. motor chided him insisted they be dpumped in the trash. i thought i'll eat those.

[laughter] but no. it was a period in my life where i was precise sently being tomorrow and the next day. everything was done graciously in the house. no hurry. left alone there with ponderous i reached instead for a book i haven't known existed. "the breast." [laughter] at that point in my reading life i kept it useless partition against roth who thanks to the intimidating aura generated bay

paperback copy of "letting go" i decided was a best selling novel. alone i gobbled "the breast" in one gulp that's how it came about. for it's a sickness most especially for a reader who wants to be a writer to open once a voice.

gathered defiantly in the remembers of our source of our sickness himself. [laughter] my situation in the east hampton was a stuff of jewish comedy if i had my jewish antenna up. if the brother was played by chris for walken, i was in a scene from annie hall. i didn't have it up, i didn't know i possessed any. by chance and unlike a margety of jews i have been raised to not take being jewish or half jewish in any way personally. i have to acquire those antenna elsewhere by my reading. it took overtly jewish american writing.

but what was iting that beefs illuminated? that something aggravated and to residential in my voice or perhaps i call it my attempt of having a voice was culture in origin. fefn aggravated appreciately in the cause of disputing or denying that point of origin. ..

with a sense that the contemporary texture of reality demanded not only remorseless interrogation but remorseless caricature and ribbing. contemporary reality in quitting perhaps especially the yearning of seriousness needs it to be seriously goosed. having accepted that leadoff in the highbrow light up i may appear to have lapsed into opening acts shtick ruffian syntax and shameless confession. it i'm employing tools roth helped instill in me. to that maybe all i've got a reliance on the air for devising

a voice and following where the voice insists on going and helpless inclination to abide within the self. with one's own inclination and appetite and the lens for seeing what is willing to be seen and as a medium for saying what one wants to be said. a literary critic you will get one soon enough. , a counter roth. for it is the faith i think of philip roth being this rare sort of writer's sues famous broad across decades and whose work transcends historical fiction metafiction memoirs the maximalist the minimalist or takers out. the counterfactual etc. and so forth. being the sort of writer who in his genre city lit up the sky of possibility for those he came

after it is safe to generate in his ambitious follower a counter roth. i will say it simply the one certainty in my generation of writers not otherwise unified by anything is that we all have some feeling about roth. we can't cannot. mostly that feeling involves some kind of strongly opinionated half bequeathed love another confession. more than 10 years after that encounter in the hamptons i become a published novelist invited for the first time to resident the artist colony. by this time i had her suit my roth obsession as i was to continue to follow it right up to the present. on my arrival a fellow writer who helped me to my room at wes tells mention the famous person who'd written masterpieces behind various windows sylvia plat john cheever and opening the door to what was my studio both unveiled a circular turret

featuring a smooth dome ceiling. the breath room he announced. [laughter] i laughed thinking he referred only to -- and then he explained that roth inspired by dwelling within this room's contour wrote it there. as with many circumstances in a young writers like i wasn't told it humbled simultaneously having been delivered by the invitation to what i thought was my maturity it turned out i was to at the font of a ship. if this story is untrue i don't ever want to find out. [laughter] i am beyond my apprenticeship now. i've no longer remarkably young and as a college professor is my duty to counsel their young aspirants navigating an encounter with roth. i chagrined to admit aid brilliant english major quit will work on his thesis as my life as a man in despair. with his permission i quayle in

the e-mail he sent when like nixon he resigned. [laughter] quote, what can i say about philip roth that philip roth hasn't already said and denied and said again himself? i was being pretty arrogant. his established literary critics could not establish roth's fiction how could i think myself possible of arriving at that challenge without reading my work which supposedly surpass. i feel like the guy taking on the marines with a single pocket knife. going forward here are the options as i see them. one find a first draft and sent it to you and come back to school next semester and write chapters three and four while taking a fuller courseload than i did this semester in applying for jobs so i have somewhat 11 something to do when i graduate or two taken complete on my transcript and take mr. tet

marr's irony in this beer instead. my gut is telling me to choose the latter. i know i messed up. if i had done a substantial work i should have done earlier this master of would have made the decision at a better time are not made at all. here i am, it's okay with me and i won't be fascinated by philip roth and letting go of my obligation to his books. i quoted at length for the pleasure of hearing how the disease has taken a hold of the e-mail myself. control panic doubling with lofty verb and arriving at letting go. i only ever made the philip roth laughed twice to my knowledge. that is weak recompense for the thousand clarity's roth bestowed on me better scored in recognition giggles of astonishment and arrogance to share earth they guffaw us. of course i only met him a couple of times and i'm hoping to add to my score tonight and in fact i think i have. the first time i made roth laugh

was in the conversation i overheard while in line for hot dog at shea stadium. our conversation between two boorish men confessing to one another that preface were a glimpse of tight spandex over that bearskin. i mention this if only for the pressure of the same spanish income friends and anyone who knows the inside of shea stadium has learned whatever can be salvaged in the hotdog line. we stood together in the late stages of an upper west side party where i dangled my infant son while roth waited impatiently to be elsewhere. in a quiet panic bobbing up and down to soothe the 6-month-old i found myself monolog into his increasingly arched eyebrows. finally straining for a reference that would interest my hero i turned the boys had slightly to the side displaying

the fact curve of his cheek and said, it resembles one of those disembodied unshaven cigar smoking heads in a philip guston painting, don't you think? the juxtaposition of my pink son and the grotesque of guston like the earlier juxtaposition of shea and spandex did the trick. he laughed. this was another lesson for roth. in putting across one's putting across in seeking arise from the listener do whatever it takes. grab any advantage an employee of the baby in your arms. i would have juggled the baby of would have helped. [laughter] to finish than with a final confession. again according to a rophie in principle this one a principle of crypto confessional storytelling that though you may in fact hold your cards quite close to your vest its best to create the thrilling illusion of having laid oneself bare than having told all.

that is something to say i don't want to leave you hanging in that southhampton guestroom. did i get anywhere with a nice rich girl? the answer is no. i saw his little action and southhampton assayed scene of those lobsters on their voyage from the brother to the kitchen garbage pail. less even than i had seen of the lobsters. the only i in southhampton was roth's. [laughter] [applause] [applause] >> when i was off to speak at this birthday celebration i had a not very good idea of collecting together some 80 something-year-old from philip

roth's books and talking about the resilience and energy of old age. i thought of herman roth and pat rooney and then i thought well however wonderful that book is perhaps talking about it dying 86-year-old father is not the best celebration for a birth date and i thought of my teacher brother mentor in "i married a communist" but when i returned to that ending i realized i remembered that he was 19 would have to wait for the next celebration of his kind. i wasn't getting on very well but rereading that final conversation between nathan zuckerman and barry ringgold in which the old english teacher has come to the end of telling nathan the story of his brother ira and is about to leave nathan alone with the indispensable stars, my eyes snagged on the passage in which nathan

remembers mary teaching macbeth to his high school class in about 1948. mary reached the class for sina which mcduff is told of the slaughter of his wife and all of his children by macbeth. he is sitting very still a few miles away from here in europe waiting for the moment when mcduff will fully understand what has happened. all his family has been slaughtered. outside a -- is grinding up chancellor avenue but the moments when mcduff with roth speaking incomprehensible, is due to say all in one fell swoop markham says to him roughly, disputed by the man and then nathan says the simple line that would have set itself in mario

ringo's voice a hundred times, a thousand times during the remainder of my life that i must also field as a man. 10 syllable says the teacher. 10 syllables five beats aids monosyllables in one word into syllables also. the word is common and ordinary and sensible as any everyday english and yet altogether coming where it does what power, simple, simple like a hammer. so this small scene and that plain simple powerful line in shakespeare which sums up the central theme in philip roth's work settled in my mind is my subject for today. how often, how dramatically and how usefully roth invokes shakespeare in his comic tragedies as a man. how often a performance on the domestic or internal stage acts out and embodies the urgent

extreme inner life of his fictional characters? it's not just theater, prosper and falstaff and lear and the fool all rolled into one who bring shakespeare into the heart of roth's fiction. macbeth is used again in exit goes when nathan zuckerman haunted by the ghost makes his own ghostly return and positively final appearance. the title exit ghost faintly echoes a wild shakespearean risk of 14 years earlier in operation shiloh where the narrator called philip roth has to listen to a lecture about shiloh given by mr. suppose neck a tel aviv book dealer and member of the secret police. in the lecture entitled, who i am, mr. suppose neck is the director of the suppose neck

theater company and draws attention to the terrifyingly prophetic stage direction. imagining a counter life is a shakespearean actor or director is something roth enjoys. david catfish may have turned into a breast but that doesn't stop them from him from doing his invitations of lawrence olivier as hamlet while he says of his own situation this is not tragedy anymore than it is farce. it's only life and i'm only human. but i must also feel it as a man the failed actor has had to give up being a test until after because his performances of falstaff and macbeth have become so excruciatingly ludicrously awful he can convince a single person in the audience for a single minute that he is falstaff orr death. he is haunted by prospero's

lines, these are actors as i foretold you were old spirits and melted into air into thin air. they go-round and round in his mind so that the two syllables into thin air count that were of an obscure indictment. mind you as jerry oppenheimer tries to console him as far as my bath is concerned it's understandable not to be able to play him. he's a horrible person for an actor says jerry. i defy anyone to play him and not be warped by the effort. a catastrophic shakespearean performance haunts sabott theater too. mr. said that's indy since theater reduction of king lear in 1959 was labeled by the critics megalomaniacs suicide, ripe tomatoes have been handed to ticketholders as they enter the theater and by the end of

the evening mr. sabo seems to relish his's marchment. years later sabbath is still performing king lear is a panhandler in the subway accosting a potential dealer with pray you now forget and forgive, i am old and foolish. at 64 already sabbath is taken up with thoughts of mortality aging and suicide. his epigram, every third thoughts shall be my grave, when it is great tragic comic encounters is the symmetry superintendent in the second part of this novel is headed to be or not to be. the name is he of every man has his own hamlet liking counter with a gravedigger in a cemetery not so far away from here, the gravedigger who dug his parents grave and who is a straightforward and informative as hamlet's gravedigger except hamlet's gravedigger was in black and he didn't have, to

bring him sandwiches for lunch, to meatloaf and one boloney. this riffing on shakespeare goes back a long way right back to portnoy. when alexandealexande r portnoy is complaining about his mothers telling them all the time to say sorry for why won't he tell his own mother that he is sorry and he would never do such a thing again ever. portnoy says actually what we are playing in that houses some fast version of king lear with me in the role of cordelia. so why have i chosen to give you these shakespearean examples from over half a century's worth of great novels? i am not quite trying to tell you that philip roth is the -- and i'm not trying to turn stratford on avon or the museum into the globe theatre. one thing is a may have occurred to you during the speech or perhaps even before it shakespeare was not jewish. [laughter] though of course he was when he needed to be.

another thing, shakespeare didn't live to 80, only 252 by which time philip roth had got as far as zuckerman. think of what shakespeare may have written if he had lived to the age of philip roth. but i am saying that roth has shakespeare deepen his head and that there is something shakespearean about the way he uses him. david catfish student and professor of literature has been infatuated since boyhood with the extreme in literature, with imagery and power, the power to affect marvelous transformation. what power. roth hears in response to shakespeare, the extreme conjunctions of plain simple demotic speech and high rhetoric the force of ordaz city of original language, the bursting out a wild grotesquerie and buffoonery, the leaps of imagination between violence

,-com,-com ma tenderness and savagery. the full-blooded air raw digs, the accidents and blows of fate that shape life, the sense of mortality and the questioning of what it means to be human. it would then be nicely poignant to think of philip roth on his 80th workday is having burned through -- hamlet where falstaff and macbeth and now his book of spells setting off peaceful and philosophical away from the magical island of his inventions , but alongside that dignified image of retirement and resignation. i would also remind you in that play of the raging and training of the violent plots of long harbored revenge, the rest of moderate comedy of shipwrecked

sailors, the deceptions and chivalry come mainly magic up by the airy spirit of the imagination and one hell of a tempest. [applause] [applause] >> i thought it would be a good idea to talk about some aspect of philip roth's work better not so often discussed. there are a lot of options and i would like to address three of them, too that i eventually rejected and the one i decided on was best. at first i thought about the music in his books. i mean this in two ways.

first, the music that he actually writes about, and music as a subject. even in this one area there's a tremendous range from the mozart that inspires alex fortnight's girlfriend whom he calls the pilgrim to her first bold act of. is the clarinet quintet at the particular favorite of roth. two the other end of his career the arrangement of the man i love with trumpet the dances too for gold and silk and human stain. he is dancing and tells silk even though he is 71 as she is 34 he is an open up for her. but that she needs a guy quote who has had all the love kicked out of him" meant. she tells him i need a man at least 100. you have a friend in a wheelchair you could introduce me to? wheelchairs are okay. i can dance and push. of course and ross worked there

is music that doesn't accompany and love and human connection but that replaces these things or comes as close as anything can to replacing them. the piano practice, that david catfish bears himself after consuela leads them and a dying animal or the music and nathan zuckerman listens to every single evening when he is all alone on his mountaintop retreat in the berkshires. music that doesn't interrupt the silence he says but that seems to him like quote the silence coming through. and when the piano walks onto the stage at tanglewood also "the human stain" and against a play the second piano concerto. it's nearly as powerful for zuckerman as was to make a seventh son has the same altam and of illusory power. sacrament things quayle our own lives now seem inextinguishable. nobody is dying, nobody. then there's the other kind of

music too, the music that roth creates himself a music of his language. to best suggest this music i should read one of his great descriptive catalogs like mickey sabbath's inventory of deborah kellen's and where george or the land around his house for sabbath remembering his childhood on the jersey shore which he does with these lines. there was sand and ocean horizon and sky daytime and nighttime. the light, the dark that but tied the stars the boats the sun. there was the peers the boardwalk the blooming silent limitless sea. where he grew up they have the atlantic. you could touch with your toes when america began. that is just a taste of it. it's hard not to want to sing these lines and i could happily spend all my time up here reading them but then i thought of the second admittedly more marginal subject that never gets

discussed, silverware. [laughter] knifes and especially forks and the uses to which people put them. mrs. portnoy standing over little alex with a bread knife making certain that he be, the knife he remembers years later had sought like teeth and the fork that is an even more dangerous weapon and that i'm sure everyone remembers from the final scene of american pastoral win at drunken guest at the labor day party tries to stab his father in the eye with a fork. i used to think that dickens had the greatest fork in fiction. when mr. finally gets to her bedroom in the chaotic house and manages to close the door without crushing the fingers of the children in the hinges looks toward the window and sees curtains held in place with a fork. roth had a trial run in his great fork seen in operation

shylock when he stabs the back of the hand she just used to cover her eyes. i feel sure that all of this will be detailed sunday in a dissertation flatware in dickens and roth. fortunately an american pastoral the drunken woman who attempts to stab his father in the eye also misses. what has happened to remind you is that supremely well meaning if relentless has pushed the unhappy woman's -- replaced it with a glass of milk and is patiently feeding her piece of pie when she announces that she will feed herself and instead go straight for his eye and missing it by one inch. and another woman at the party starts to laugh. her laughter is the last sound in the book. not bad for somebody as drunk as this baby she says.

leaving "american pastoral" to end in a mixture of tragedy and slapstick that is one of the most distinctive aspects of roth's genius. everybody was red "american pastoral" must remember the scene but you may not remember the laughing woman's name. she's a minor character and her name is marsha. she is a left-wing college professor, a smart it may be too opinionated person who need is neither can stand and when she is laughing about roth tells us is quote how far the rampant disorder has spread unquote. when she is enjoying it, the salability ,-com,-com ma the frailty and the enfeeblement of supposedly robust things. and it was one i was thinking about marsha human off and funny if farley and debbie kellen's brother michelle that i realize there's a subject that has been given less consideration than music or even silverware and that is the quality of the

female characters in all theside or pick up place or necking parlor. or were they would park their car to give cash to stay away. [laughter] heard the other playing field 150 yards long and 60 yards wide just down some avenue from my house. steam shovels had gouged it out of the hill in the 1930's. the field is what everyone called it. the field where the nemesis buddies threw the javelin. running with that and stretching his throwing arm back behind his body, bringing the throwing on to release the javelin high over his shoulder and

leaving it there like an explosion. i and finished with that stuff to. i describe my last javelin throw and my last stamp album and my last choice store and the last breath you'll be glad to know. [laughter] them last butcher shop and last them a crisis can last unconscionable betrayal and the laughter of the timber that killed my father. i don't want to describe the labor of ice fishing or body surfing at the jersey shore. the city going up in flames or the west under president lindbergh or prague under

the totalitarian of this of the union or the jewish superpatriots diatribe in the west bank settlement or the christmas carol service next to the anti-semitic sister-in-law in the london church and or what shakespeare called the things of malice. i don't want to describe how it has filled back up to the brim. i know what to describe another death or even a simple trauma of the very pleasures of living the human comedy. wish i could contemplate fiction, the accusers even

those who are beautifully intact to except life gravely and joyfully. i won't tell you tonight you saw a snippet of a championship fight the ultimate knockdown followed by the crushing knockout on saturday afternoon at the rose bowl feeder. the only witness the damage firsthand the approve force of close. it was located on sixth avenue fiscal park, the field, a museum, library, the bike bike, all of which over the years inspired me while at my desk and once described the british cessation fluently.

my father took with older brother and me, not new york and madison square garden in its heyday but during the war. my brother and i one of us would take the black the other the white were both fighters were the same race then you take the light trucks over the dark trunks. that night i could blow my $0.25 allowance. but the fight night provided the experience for the 10 year-old boy it was practically spiritual in had the senate got beat by a mile. [laughter] -- the synagogue be to buy a

mile. you could be asphyxiated for one goal put there. grown men in rough indignant voices would roar abuse of encouragement to fight. of course, speaking speaking jewish but then half of the fighters were from the bronx i never would have known my own. but the roughnecks and the of hoodlums collectively speaking themselves to death you bomb. with the encounter of the profane. i won't tell you about seeing jackie robinson 1946 before he broke into the lily white big leagues and

the first black player. he was with the brooklyn club and the montreal royals. the trip be a -- aaa yankee minor club that the stadium here in a working-class neighborhood known as the iron bolts. at a quarter a ticket on the weekdays boys whose greatest lust was the subtleties in the individual heroism of the game of baseball. it was just us boys and the drunks scattered thinly about. mostly the drunks did not bother anyone they would be snoring in the summer sun. but there was one i remember , and inspired one

who would rouse himself every inning and looking around trying to figure out where he was. then, no matter what was going on in the game, he would stand up on wobbly legs and yell between his hands what kim. what kim. he is a bad man. but that does not mean anything. [laughter] but surely didn't come over to sit here all night to listen to this. my friend tells me the greek rhetorical terms if you will not talk about something and then for a doll for ironic effect talks about it.

[laughter] then to take a last -- less classical approach to have a friendly audience that even if it doesn't camouflage once the motion quite so well. to commemorate me having been generously given time and health to finish 31 books a want to read a few pages as well as any i have ever written. and have recently concluded over half a century that i like all the pages i have written this is from the 1995 novel. >> it takes as the epigraph from act five. every third thought shall be my grave.

but couldn't called death and the arts of dying but it breaks down suicide, it is rampant and so is hatred and lust is rampant. around the clock at the factory with the aging sabbath come around the clock at the second factory the furnaces are burning away. we're disobedience is rampant and death is rampant. he does not live where his back is turned, and nobody could concurred more heartily than when the copter wrote the meaning of life is when it stops. to read -- to be reunited with the dead never crossed his mind the closer you get

to the dead, the stronger the geyser of tormented feelings and then to that antagonistic performance of his life. it is a savage journey with the dead into his own proforma. his book is wanted -- haunted about others and they gave the of his own. living with delight also with despair. learning the mistrust life where his older brother is killed in world war ii. it is his death that determines how he will live. he sets the gold standard for grief. through the globe way ahead of his time from contingency

transformed utterly at the age of 15 by the unimaginably gruesomely real that disappears in a blank. hardly the immutable planet. life as a game of chance. excuse me. nature changes course my father was prone to say change it. [laughter] eyes of squid novel said that there is anything but it is rather the instinct turbulence of the man commit the unmanageable may and comedy and exonerated me and. his way of living unable and

unwilling to hide anything and raging and satirizing and mocking everything living beyond discretion this repellent way of living has the unique response to a place where nothing keeps its promise and everything is perishable. his repellent way of living of the altar book is the best preparation he knows of. in his mischief he finds the truth. teeeight dying, decay, a grief, laughter, ungovernable laughter. the sabbath is a jokester like hamlet who looks at the tragedy by cracking jokes and also as comedy by

planting suicide. here he is at his cemetery on the jersey shore searching for the graves of his grandparents, parents grandparents, parents, and the brother whose twin engine was shot dealt with their routine bombing run japanese philippines december 1944. it is now 50 years later and sabbath aged 62 searches still for the replaceable brother. from the bottom of page 363 through 370.

somebody's watch is going off. [laughter] getting to the old grade to the burial grounds from the original seashore jews he gave the funeral in progress for a wide berth and careful to steer clear of the watchdog at the prayer house. they had not yet been given a common courtesies let alone the ancient taboo from the jewish cemetery. jews are guarded by dogs? historic plea very, very wrong. but to be on battle mountain as close to the jury gets he could get it occurred to him long before today. who would he talk to up there?

he had and never found one who could talk fast enough for him. [laughter] and then they are slower than usual. he would have to swallow the insult of the dog or the cemetery. after 10 minutes of rambling about his grandparents graves, we saw only if he traveled methodically up and down reading every headstone could he hope to locate clara and mordecai. the inscriptions of others he could ignore. they said at rest but the hundreds upon hundreds of headstone's required his concentration. immersion so complete there is nothing inside and. he had to shrug off how many

of them he would have despised he had to drink they were not that far after all. our beloved mother, our beloved husband and father father, beloved mother beloved husband and father, a beloved husband husband, father, grandfather. beloved husband and father. beloved mother. beloved wife rebecca. beloved husband and father benjamin beloved mother and

grandmother sarah. beloved mother and grandmother sophie. beloved mother. beloved husband. blood that has spent more arrests. beloved wife and mother rebecca. our beloved daughter and sister hannah sarah. our dear father martin. on and on and on. nobody beloved gets out alive. [laughter] our son and brother nathan. in memory of my beloved husband and your father and my beloved wife. just that. beloved wife.

david shorts died in service of his country 1894 and 1918. in memory of a true wife and loyal friend. hours and come in 19 years old, no name. just our son. and here we are. clara sabbath. and mordecai's seventh 19 -- 187-13-1923. a simple stone and a couple on top. who had come to visit? dad? who cared. who was left?

you were said to be headstrong mordecai a with a joker even you cannot make a joke like this. better mr. they don't know. grandma of your occupation everything about you your stature cover your silence said i am not indispensable no contradictions, no temptations although you were fond of corn on the cob [laughter] mother hated to watch you eat it. the worst of this summer it made her nauseous. i love to watch. the way you got along keeping quiet was the key. but who could play new?

you did not live to see everything shattered. nothing big about you or nothing small either. dying at the king memorial haven't left anything out? yes. you used to love to clean the of fish for us. most of the time we came home for nothing but the triumph of walking home with some in the bucket from the beach he would clean them in the kitchen in you cut strip the center behind the gills and then you would just put your hand in and grab the good stuff and throw away then you would scale working against the scales somehow

not getting them all over the place. 15 minutes to clean it the whole thing to a q5 minutes. never cut off the head or the tail and you would make it a whole, fresh cornyn tomatoes in grandma's meal. something down the beach to talk to the other men. april 13 it is right or it is wrong. the attachment to those two are nearby learning what feeling was all about. and to comfortably for a final time certain high

points. a need now with the man next door. he used to talk to the other men. and then brown pants and day short sleeve white sure he could not care less about catching fish he said the chief pleasure fishing is getting out of the house. but the moment you get the

big hit, everything jolts. when it takes the bait it will head out. stop the line it will snap so you have to let it out. with the blue you could really in but not the striper. the striper will fight you. getting those fish off the hook was a problem. remember when i was a i wound up in a hospital, a grandmother? a huge ray bit me and i passed out. their predatory sons of bitches.

just like a flat shark. more they had to holler for help they carried me up to the guy's car. whenever we went out fishing we cannot wait for you to get back this you could get the catch. there were great. watching you was a lot of fun. what else did we bring you to clean? fluke, flounder joining the air corps we went down to the beach with our rod for an hour.

mostly date and mostly squid never cleaned the rod. going to live beach to fish for an hour everybody in the house is crying because warty is going to war. but you were already here. you are already gone. i will tell you what happened october 10, october 10, 1942, the honda routers september because he wanted to be there for my of bar mitzvah october 11 he went to in last flask of the fishing off the jetties in the beach by the middle of october the fish just appeared.

i would ask marty where do the fish go to? nobody knows he said nobody knows where the fish go once they go out to see who knows where they go? the thick people follow them around? that is the mystery of fishing. nobody knows where they are. we went down to the end of the street downstairs and onto the beach it was just about dark. where he could throw rick even in the days before spit casting. the rod was much different torture to cast for a kid and most of the time i was starling the lines and getting it straightened out.

morty said he would miss -- miss going fishing with me he took me down to the beach to say to buy without the family carrying on. the sound of the waves comatose in the sand, quiet batf all those things out there about to bite your bait and the thrill of being out there. you don't know what it is or how big it is or even know if you will see it. and he never did see a. you get what you get when you're older which is something when you open yourself up something that is overwhelming and something you probably tread he got killed instead. that is the news grandma.

the great generational gift spinning down on the beach with your older brother. sleep in the same room you get very close. he to be with him everywhere. one summer when he was about 12 he got a job selling bananas door to door a guy hired morty and he hired me at the age of seven yelling bananas $0.25 a bunch. what a great job. [laughter] i still sometimes dream about that job. i got paid to shout bananas. [laughter] on thursdays and fridays after school he went to pluck chickens for the kosher butcher.

morty would take me long to help. the chickens were infested with lice. i would feel like the big shot to be like morty but just to pluck the chickens. he used to protect me from the syrian jews. they would dance in the summer on the sidewalk or jitterbug. i doubt that you never saw that grandmother but when summer either bring home his apron and mom would washer for the next night. it would be stained yellow from the mustard and relish and when he came into our room at night he smelled

like mustard and sauerkraut and hot dogs. they had good hot dogs. the syrian guys, the jews used to dance outside on the sidewalk like sailors. they had a damascus mambo they did all related they were likely and with very dark skin. syrian kids who join the card games played ferocious blackjack used to hear dads' crony talk about them with their play poker in our kitchen on friday nights. toughest people in the world to do business with the will chief u.s. soon as you turn around. some of the syrian kids made

in the persian one of them would take a swing at you for no reason the other would want to kill you and walk away. i would be hypnotized by his sister. i was 12. she and i were in the same class. a little hairy fire plug with huge eyebrows i could not get over her dark skinned. she told her brother what i said and he started to rush me up and said i never should have looked at her left alone said anything but the dark skin got me going. always has. he started to rush me a bright in front and morty came out and said stay away from him and he said you going to make me? and morty said yes and he

took one shot and opened up were these knows. remember? his form of narcissism never enchanted. 16 stitches the syrians were in another time always whispering among themselves. i was 12 and inside my pants things were beginning to reverberate and i could not keep my eyes off of his theory sister. -- harry sister. he had another brother that i recall what reason was not human either. [laughter] but then came the war morty

was 18. here's a kid who never went away in his life except maybe a track meet never left the county but every day of his life he returned home and lawlessness renewed every day and the next morning he goes off to die. from death is endless nests is it not? would you agree? for whatever it is worse before a move on, i have never once eaten corn on the cob without a recalling said devouring frenzy of you and your dentures with the repugnance of my mother. [laughter] it taught me more about

mother-in-law's. it taught me everything. this grandmother and mother had all she could do not teethree out into the street in my mother was not an kind. you know, that. one of ford's happiness the other has discussed. it into it -- and of interplay to kill everyone. beloved wife and mother fannie. beloved wife and mother hanna. beloved husband and father jack. it goes on. our beloved mother rose. power beloved fell -- father harry father and grandfather and brother. people. all people.

another devoted wife mother and grandmother was just reunited with one of her family the other is yet unidentified to find couples on the stone of his mother, his father and morty. here i am. thank you. [applause] if

speculative think it is an important book in the way the court works. there's so few good books out there explaining the process. how did they go about it or whether they saying to one another? we see these cases that split five / four. to their personal feelings get into it? not just about capital?==?=? punishment but albacore=?= operates.==== => when you dig into the==?=== notes of the library of===== congress, the memoranda, the==== notes back and forth =between justices available, allah is available. >> i am not a lawyer and i= plead not guilty but i was fascinated by the human side. of many cases justices you can see they have reservations about capital punishment

>> we're at the conservative political action conference with the author of the communist. who was frank marshall davis? >> he was born in kansas 1905 died 1987 and ended up in chicago ultimately honolulu where he would meet a young man named rocco bomb in the 1970's. he was introduced by his grandfather stanley dunham and i should back up a little bit, ed davis was african-american come early in his life he was a republican as a lot of black americans were from lincoln through fdr and then became

part of the of progressive left that is a long complicated story in the book then went so far to the left during world war ii he joined the communist party usa. that is a big deal because there were a lot of american communists who never joined communist party usa when you do that you literally swore in allegiance to the soviet union, the stalinist soviet union and you committed yourself to what communist party usa that was the soviet american republic. so davis really went to the other side. after that he ended up and was the founding editor in chief of the communist party publication in chicago that was the down the line pro kremlin publication into that year's then went to honolulu and was a columnist for the hall of -- honolulu

record the communist publication there and wrote until 1957. his writings were incredibly anti-american at the time. especially anti-harry truman because he was the president apposing stalin. craig marshall davis took over the truman administration he oppose nato he called the marshall plan american imperialism imperialism, whites imperialism and he completes of the soviet line 100% and was eventually called to washington by the democrats by the senate judiciary committee to testify on his soviet activities. they identified him as a national member of the communist party and eventually he would go through obama as grandfather to meet and mentor of young rock obama throughout the

'70s. >> host: talk about mentoring, what was their meeting, how was it a mentor ship? >> great question. i dunno how often they met one source told me they thought it was weekly i could not confirm that but david maraniss says in his new book that they've met upwards of 15 times. i would imagine this source would have to be obama because i don't know where he would have got that. i am not doubting that but that would be a lot. bill clinton cites his mentor i doubt they met 15 times but for long periods into late evenings together and obama in his memoirs refers to frank by name not frank marshall davis, a 22 times and refers to him dozens of other times. that is a lot. ronald reagan in his memoir

it never refers to his mentor even one time. hillary clinton in her memoir refers to her mentor maybe half a dozen times. as you have obama mentioning frank quite a bit. >> host: when would this have been? >> the entirety of the 1970's. introduced the fall of 1970 and met all the way through the time that obama left for occidental college in 1979. in "dreams from my father" he talks about one of the last forms of advice he sought out to before he left was from frank marshall davis where he went into a classic diatribes against the american way. it is interesting i found in davis's columns from the chicago star in the late forties they consistently

bashing the american way in almost a decade -- identical language recorded from "dreams from my father." that came out in 1995, the audio version which can amount to thousand five, that would have been after obama as historic convention speech where obama began his meteoric rise to the presidency but in the audio version frank marshall davis is completely purged and not mentioned one time anywhere it is remarkable you can listen to the audio version and it goes word for word then you come to this section on frank and it just skips ahead a few paragraphs, pages, it does it again and again so he is completely out of the audio version because obama knew and his handlers new that at that point* in his career it

was not good for him to it knowledge this close relationship with them and who was an actual member of communist party usa. >> host: you were -- or a professor how did you become interested in this story? >> through called for research. previously how the communist movement sought out progressives and liberals and lied to them and would knighted but they were communists but use them. one communist you did this and never admitted he was a communist was frank marshall davis. i have a couple of chapters on him then as as often happens people send you information, you get more material than after a while i said that's it i have got to write a book on frank marshall davis and honestly i knew i would be blasted for doing this and knew that

i would be hammered and demonized and attacked but this is my area and i knew it had to be written. we would never not write a book or look at the mentors of others. and mention if ms. romney had a mentor that was an admirer of hitler or a closet not see. the press would not hesitate to ignore it that you have the guy he was on this side of the soviet union run by stalin. it is worthy of our attention. >> host: mr. kengor author of the communist. thank you. .

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